The Old Mid-Levels
Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels has always been a wealthy place, home first to the city’s Western elite and then to a broader mix of local and expatriate professionals. Its narrow, hilly streets were once lined by mansions, rowhouses and lowrise apartment blocks, but that has gradually given way to a kind of vertical suburbia where giant apartment towers sit atop parking garage podiums that face the street with blank walls and driveways.
These hostile, extravagant constructions make the Mid-Levels an unpleasant place to walk around, despite the overall quietude and the abundance of greenery. But there are still a handful of streets that retain a pleasant human scale. These are streets where pedestrians are greeted by big windows, balconies, rough-cut stone walls and small shops, not over-the-top fountains, hotel-style lobbies and massive driveways.
Tags: Development, Exploring the City, Hong Kong
